Important Whisky People: The Whisky Maker

23-02-2018

By Whizzky Staff Writer

We continue to celebrate the important people behind our favourite drink. We started with the cooper, master of the barrel. This time, we are honouring the whisky makers, both the master distiller and master blender. Help us raise a dram to masters of malts.

The master blender is in charge of the composition
of the whisky including selecting the casks, making blends and ensuring consistency
across all the batches.

“I'm quite bold, that's part of why I'm a blender” says Rachel Barrie, master blender at BenRiach Distillery Company. She told Munchies that her job is not for the faint-hearted. Rachel is the world’s first female whisky master blender. Only
one of 12 whisky master blenders in the entire world. The title is quite prestigious, bestowed upon you
by your peers.

Rachel Barrie Master Blender at The BenRiach

No formal qualifications are required to be a
master blender; it is achieved through experience. But you need to have a superior
nose. Renown master blender Richard Paterson of The Dalmore noses hundreds of
cask samples each day. So important is his nose that he took out a £2.5 million insurance on
it. Paterson told Time Magazine that his role is both
an art and craft “much
of it is about choosing the right combination of a cask that will “bring the
beauty out” of the whisky “like a good dress,” while monitoring the complex
aging process of his many malts.

Robert Paterson

The title of master blender differs from that of master
distiller. A master distiller ensures the production of whisky – managing the
mashing and distillation process to the time the spirit enters the casks. In
smaller distilleries, one person tends to perform both duties of master distiller
and master blender.

Wild Turkey's Jimmy Russell

80 year old Jimmy Russell is a widely celebrated master distiller. Russell is known as the Budha of Bourbon. He has spent over
60 years making whiskey at Wild Turkey, the longest tenured active-master
distiller in the world.

David Stewart MBE

The industry is tightly knit but also features
healthy competition. David Stewart is malt master at Grants & Sons. Stewart
is known for pioneering double maturation in the form of cask finishes for The Balvenie, having started out as a whisky stocks clerk in 1962. Andy Watts, master distiller for Three Ships in South Africa, won the Rest of the World Master Distiller/Master Blender of the Year in this year's Icons of Whisky Awards.

Angela D'Orazio

A typical day for master
blenders involves nosing whiskies and grading them for different uses. Angela D’Orazio is responsible for Swedish whisky Mackmyra. She also creates
“recipes” for new Mackmyra expressions for the future.